SWG News

New Challenge: Gates of Summer

Posted by SWG Moderators on 14 June 2025. Last updated on 14 June 2025.

Summer is a season of flourishing, when life is at its peak. It is a time of plenty, when the light lingers long and celebrations dot the calendar. As we prepare for our big Mereth Aderthad celebration in just a month's time—an event that celebrates the vibrant life of our group and all of the creators and members who have shaped its history—we turn to the topic of summer. Like summer, we hope the SWG and the creativity and fellowship between its members will be a light that endures for many years to come!

This month, challenge participants will select their own prompts from a collection of prompts related to summer. The collection includes quotes from the texts, canon events, events in Tolkien's life, and quotes from Tolkien's letters. As always, you can mix and match prompts if you want, and we encourage creative interpretations of prompts.

In honor of Pride Month, there is a special stamp available for fanworks that focus on LGBTQIA+ characters.

Thank you to Anérea for this month's banner and stamps!

You can find the prompts for the Gates of Summer challenge here.

In order to receive a stamp for your fanwork, your response must be posted to the archive on or before 15 July 2025. For complete challenge guidelines, see the Challenges page on our website.


Mereth Aderthad Interview: Interview with Varda delle Stelle by Shadow

Posted by SWG Moderators on 13 June 2025. Last updated on 13 June 2025.

Cloudyhymn's presentation The Design of Dragons and the Doom of the Dwarves posits dragons as a corruption of Dwarves, both sharing a connection to the earth but on opposing sides, similar to the relationship Tolkien sometimes described between Elves and Orcs. Varda delle Stelle, the SWG's assistant art editor, will be creating two paintings as the featured artist for cloudyhymn's presentation at Mereth Aderthad 2025. Shadow spoke with Varda about her own connections to the earth and concepts in cloudyhymn's presentation, her creative process, and her hopes for her Mereth Aderthad paintings.

You can read Shadow's interview with Varda delle Stelle here.


Mereth Aderthad Interview: Interview with Kai by Shadow

Posted by SWG Moderators on 7 June 2025. Last updated on 8 June 2025.

Kai is a Tolkien artist whose work captures both the dramatic moments of the legendarium and the moments of friendship and love between characters that drove these storied events. Kai's work often captures light and radiance, making him fitting as a featured artist for Maglor's Mereth Aderthad 2025 presentation, "Gil-galad was an Elven King: Kingship and Personhood in the last High King of the Noldor." Kai spoke with Shadow about how Maglor's topic was instantly inspiring, his range of interests over the years in the legendarium, and the meaning behind the painting he made for Maglor's presentation.

You can read Shadow's interview with Kai here.


Mereth Aderthad Interview: Interview with Reese by Dawn

Posted by SWG Moderators on 7 June 2025. Last updated on 9 June 2025.

Back in March, we spoke with polutropos' about her presentation on the "kidnap fam" trope and its broad appeal in the fandom. Few episodes in the legendarium provoke such fascination and range of interpretations. Reese is the featured author for polutropos' Mereth Aderthad 2025 presentation, "'Kidnap Fam' and the Living Legendarium." Dawn spoke to Reese about her story, which is an epistolary found fiction, and the appeal of alternate universe, mythology and Tolkien and the many fruitful connections they share, the kidnap fam trope—and how the silences in all of these invite storytellers to fill the gaps.

You can read Dawn's interview with Reese here.


Mereth Aderthad Interview: Interview with Dawn Felagund by Shadow

Posted by SWG Moderators on 5 June 2025. Last updated on 5 June 2025.

Dawn Felagund is the featured author for Savannah Horrell's paper "By Guile Committed: Comparing Tolkien’s Thieves to Beowulf" for Mereth Aderthad 2025. Shadow spoke with Dawn about her story for Savannah's presentation, the juggling act of creating a fanwork for the event while also organizing it, and the power of reading Tolkien as a work of history.

You can read Shadow's interview with Dawn here.


Mereth Aderthad Interview: Interview with Cindy Gates by Grundy

Posted by SWG Moderators on 3 June 2025. Last updated on 3 June 2025.

Fans of Tolkien will typically identify love, loyalty, nature, and hope as defining themes in his work. Less often do they see the legendarium as fertile grounds for exploring the use of science and technology. Cindy Gates, who has written under the pseudonym pandemonium_213 and retired from a scientific career last year, has written fanworks and meta for much of the SWG's history that do the opposite, presenting Middle-earth as a land where people face the same questions about science and technology that we do. Grundy spoke to Cindy about her upcoming Mereth Aderthad 2025 presentation, "Tolkien, Lunatic Physicists, and Abnegation" and the many fruitful connections between the Manhattan Project and The Silmarillion.

You can read Grundy's interview with Cindy here.


So You Want to Present at a Tolkien Conference? Actually Presenting!

Posted by SWG Moderators on 1 June 2025. Last updated on 14 June 2025.

Mereth Aderthad 2025 is coming in July, and we are excited to have many fans who are presenting their meta, research, and scholarship at the event! But even though Tolkien fans engage in deep research and thinking about the legendarium all the time, making the step to presenting that work at conferences can feel intimidating. Even in a field as friendly to fan and independent scholarship as Tolkien studies is, the trappings of academia remain and, unless you have academic training, these can be a barrier to participation.

To help demystify conference proposals and presentations, over the next few months, we will be holding sessions aimed at helping fans make the sideways step to Tolkien scholarship by presenting their work at a Tolkien conference. Our third and final session is about the presentation itself! The day has come. You have your paper written, your slides and handouts ... and now you stand before your audience. In this session, you will learn how to be an effective presenter. (If you missed our first two sessions, they can be found here: So You Want to Present at a Tolkien Conference? Writing the Proposal and So You Want to Present at a Tolkien Conference? Putting Together the Presentation.)

Date: Saturday, 14 June 2025
Time: 1:00 PM Eastern Time (what is this in my timezone?
Location: RSVP to have a reminder emailed to you | Join the session here

After the session, there will be time for questions, and we will stay online for a collaborative writing session for anyone who is interested.

All are welcome to attend and participate to whatever extent they feel comfortable! (In other words, you can keep your camera off and there are no breakout rooms.)

Can't make it on June 14? We will record the session so that anyone can view it.

If you need to change your Zoom display name before or while attending, learn how to do that here.


Mereth Aderthad Interview: Interview with Grundy by Shadow

Posted by SWG Moderators on 29 May 2025. Last updated on 7 June 2025.

Grundy is one of our moderators on the SWG and best known for her fiction here on our site. However, she is also a glass artist, and this is where she is turning her attention for Mererth Aderthad 2025, as she designs a fanwork-in-glass for Cindy Gates' presentation “Tolkien, Lunatic Physicists, and Abnegation." Shadow spoke to Grundy about her inspiration on the project and long love of Tolkien.

You can read Shadow's interview with Grundy here.


Mereth Aderthad Interview: Interview with Azh, Admirable Monster by Shadow

Posted by SWG Moderators on 29 May 2025. Last updated on 14 June 2025.

Tolkien identified one of the major themes of his work as "the machine": the power and appropriate use of technology. Azh's found fiction "Lightborn" considers the topic of abnegation and scientific progress, based on Cindy Gates' forthcoming presentation on the subject, "Tolkien, Lunatic Physicists, and Abnegation." Shadow spoke with Azh about their story, its real-life inspiration in their work, and the sympathy that Tolkien shows even for characters who commit moral failures.

You can read Shadow's interview with Azh, Admirable Monster here.


Mereth Aderthad Interview: Interview with bunn by Shadow

Posted by SWG Moderators on 24 May 2025. Last updated on 7 June 2025.

Dragons and Dwarves are among the mysterious creatures in the legendarium, and for both, Tolkien took his own inspiration from Germanic myth, folklore, and literature. For Mereth Aderthad 2025, bunn is creating both a story and a work of art for presentations rooted in the Germanic lore of the legendarium: cloudyhymn's presentation "The Design of Dragons and the Doom of Dwarves" and Savannah Horrell's presentation "By Guile Committed: Comparing Tolkien’s Thieves to Beowulf." Shadow spoke to bunn about their work for these two presentations, the appeal of Dwarves, and the many fruitful connections between Beowulf and Tolkien's own work.

You can read Shadow's interview with bunn here.